WhirledView

America's Unsuccessful War in Pakistan

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Pakistan is the world’s sixth largest country, with a population of nearly 168,000,000 people, most of them Muslims, which means there are multiple deeply held divergences in the interpretation and practice of Islam, although these chasms may disappear when outside force is applied—U.S. force included. To understand this dynamic, Americans might remember how bipartisanship crops up when external threats appear. So Americans should not be surprised that even relatively secular urban Pakistanis are not enthusiastic about American efforts to vigorously pursue or eradicate “Islamist insurgents” within their northern borderland. There is certainly a problem of law and order in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a problem that is acquiring urgency because the ferment is spilling out and into other parts of Pakistan. Terrorists have threatened Islamabad and Lahore as well as the ever volatile megacity of Karachi, for example. Above all, longstanding, largely tacit understandings about cultural autonomy and spheres of influence within and across national boundaries have been abused and violated by many players.

But employing the Pakistani Army to slaughter unruly tribals by the hundreds or thousands in order to pluck Osama bin laden, America’s Enemy Number One, out of his mountainous safe haven would appear, to most Pakistanis, like swatting a fly with an atom bomb: a strategy certain to do more harm than good. And Pakistan is jealous of its sovereignty.

“Half of all Pakistanis want their government to negotiate and not fight Al Qaeda, with less than a third saying military action by the Pakistani government is called for,” according to a recent poll by Terror Free Tomorrow. They'd prefer to negotiate with the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, too. Some 73 per cent of those polled said that “the real purpose of [America's] war on terror is to weaken the Muslim world and dominate Pakistan.” Part of me wonders if a more effective Public Diplomacy effort might have led to less negativity. Part of me replies, "It's the policy, stupid."

American policymakers should pay attention to such disheartening poll results. Pakistan, as a semi-cooperative ally, is endlessly exasperating to American policy makers. Pakistan as a sullen ex-ally would be far worse, and all it would take to accomplish such a divorce is the capture and public parading of a few U.S. special forces operatives nabbed on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan. The furor over America's border-crossing bombs, called in to kill alleged insurgents who turned out to be Pakistan Border Corps troops, of whom 11 died, gives a tiny hint of the likely reaction. American popularity in Pakistan is at an all time low these days, while sympathy for Al Qaeda’s goals, if not the violence with which those goals are pursued, is rising. Thus, the secular elite that has been governing Pakistan since its inception is increasingly under siege. To stay in power the non-religious parties must maintain their nationalist if not their Islamist credentials. A popular way of criticizing Pervez Musharraf, George W. Bush’s increasingly marginalized ally in the “war against terror,” is to call him an American tool.

Hands Across the Border

Once upon a time India served as the juicy scapegoat for Pakistan’s nationalists, and not so long ago outside observers worried that India (or Pakistan) might inadvertently (or intentionally) lob a nuclear device across the border. To defend the brand new country against the threat of Indian irredentism is what the Pakistan army was created for. And why did Pakistan originally encourage the activities of violent Islamists who are now, in classic blowback fashion, threatening a form of Islamic revolution within Pakistan itself? Why, to weaken India on the cheap, by forcing New Delhi to deal with incessant insurgency in Muslim majority Kashmir.

But things may be changing on the Indian front. When asked the tired old question as to whether a “foreign hand” might be “fanning trouble in the tribal belt,” Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani replied “yes.” Yet India wasn’t named this time. The alleged culprits were “some foreigners from Central Asian States.” No doubt American policymakers would have preferred a Gilani diatribe against Arabs, as in Osama bin Laden, or Egyptians, as in Aymen Al Zawahri, but the latest series of talks between India and Pakistan seem to be achieving some degree of trust between the traditional enemies. The still wary neighbors are discussing peach and security, confidence building measures in Kashmir, economic ties, prisoner exchanges and anti-terrorism.

Better yet, from that point of view, a recent editorial in Dawn applauds the new sanity:

....detente between Indian and Pakistan will impact positively on global politics. With no signs of Islamabad winning the “war on terror” in the immediate future and the militants recognizing no borders, a wise strategy demands that India and Pakistan join hands in their security endeavour.

However, the Dawn editorial ends with a twist that may not please Washington:

In that context their agreement...to hold meetings of their anti-terrorism mechanism regularly is encouraging. It would also reduce Islamabad’s dependence on Washington in world politics.

Speaking of Washington, when asked about making Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, available for further interrogation from IAEA as a result of recently uncovered evidence that his one-man proliferation operation was even more generous than previously known, Gilani said, “the issue of Dr. Qadeer is over.” This will displease the Americans. So will Gilani’s present position on the Pakistani nuclear weapons program: “we are not a rogue state and are neither indulging in an arms race with any one” although “minimum deterrence will be maintained in this regard.

Desperately Seeking Bin Laden

Above all, the Americans are definitely not happy with Pakistan’s failure to nab Osama bin Laden or to permit American forces to nip over the border from Afghanistan to do the job for them.

Senators McCain and Obama: How Will they Vote on the Wheelchair Bill?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

While Obama and McCain play to the crowd on the oil price crunch, Congress is playing games with Medicare.

On the one hand, we have Republican politicians shouting that we can’t afford Medicare, much less universal health care, which many Democrats more or less support, while clinging to various coy and complex reservations. I include Obama in this flirtation with meeting American’s health needs, because he has not, to my mind, been sufficiently comprehensive in his goals or clear in his assertions. McCain is essentially for total health care privatization, which definitely won’t help to raise America’s life expectancy stats to a respectable level.

On the other hand, Congressional leaders of BOTH parties, it seems, have voted to undercut efforts to halt Medicare over payments for medical devices. It seems that an elderly or post-operative person who is a little wobbly can buy an ordinary walker in a big box store for half what it would cost Medicare to provide the same item.

How can this be? Simple. Current procurement policies for Medicare don’t require suppliers to bid competitively on contracts to supply such devices. This bit of federal assistance, a brazen subsidy to the private sector of the sort that "Conservatives" are addicted to, was going to be eliminated by Congressional reformers.

But then the industry got to work on our representatives and presto!!!! More of our tax dollars funneled—approximately $1,000,000,000—to the undeserving. That’s big business bed-manufacturers, not beggars. The system isn’t being milked by illegal immigrants, it seems. It’s being bilked by the free enterprise types who typically hate competition. It's so inefficient.

Guess What? American Muslims Aren’t That Different

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

I always sit up and pay attention when another Pew survey is announced, and the report that was covered in my morning NYT on June 24 had to do with religion in the U.S.

A major survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith. A majority of those who are affiliated with a religion, for instance, do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation. And almost the same number believes that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion. This openness to a range of religious viewpoints is in line with the great diversity of religious affiliation, belief and practice that exists in the United States, as documented in a survey of more than 35,000 Americans that comprehensively examines the country’s religious landscape

Religion is a hot political topic these days. The wall of separation between church and state is under assault, and the administration has declared war on radical Islam. So I was very eager to read this article which declared that a “survey of religion in U.S. finds a broad tolerance for other faiths.”

The tabulations that followed included nine categories: Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Unaffiliated. But where were the Muslims? Was it possible that the Pew people had neglected to include Muslims?

Or was it that data involving Muslims was simply ignored by the reporter, whose name showed her to be of high caste Bengali Hindu descent. Was this a snub that went back to the ancestral culture in Indian West Bengal?

OK. Reporters are human. But where was the editor? Surely an editor would have noticed that Muslims were absent from the story submitted by the reporter. Except, it seems, the editor didn’t, unless the Pew people had been very very negligent.

So, naturally, I went on line. I found, to my great relief, that the Pew people had not failed to include Muslims in this very important tabulation (though the consolidated data comes from different studies).

Above all (and this is of major political importance) it seems that Muslims in America aren’t statistically all that different from any other Americans in the essence of their theology or the resulting political implications.

Thus, under the category “Many Paths to God,” it appears that 56% of American Muslims agree that “many religions can lead to eternal life.” Mormans rank only 39% on this item and Jehovah’s Witnesses lag at 16%. Nobody who can tolerate other roads to god is likely to throw bombs, so we should certainly be reassured that a solid majority of Muslims are very tolerant indeed. (And most of the rest aren’t fanatical or suicidal, just as most evangelicals wouldn't bomb an abortion clinic.)

Even more interesting as a perspective on American Islam was the category which involved “Conception of God.” This choice had to do with whether one believes that god is “a person” one can have a “relationship” with or that god is “an impersonal force.” Some 42% of Muslims saw God as an impersonal force. That’s more than the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians—and nearly as many as the Jews, who stand at 50% in this category. Now I ask you, if someone thinks of God as an impersonal force, is that person likely to support or go on a violent jihad? I think not.

The third category category reported in the NYT had to do with the comparative value of “ensuring peace" through “diplomacy or military strength." Some 84% of Muslims prefer diplomacy. Catholics come in at 64%, Protestants at 55% and Mormons at a mere 49%. What does that say about the supposedly violent inclinations of Muslims as a whole? Totally demolished.

It’s often said in political commentary today that violent Islam is espoused by those who feel their values are threatened by America’s popular culture or by those who are dissatisfied with their lives or opportunities. The Pew poll shows that American Muslims are no more worried than other Americans about whether “Hollywood threatens my values” and they are equally satisfied with their lives. So American Muslims aren’t disproportionately alienated either.

Perhaps we are over the worst human rights abuses which followed the destruction of the World Trade towers, but simplistically negative ideas about Muslims and Islam are still all too prevalent. This Pew study should go a long way toward inoculating non-Muslim Americans against such prejudice.

Three Stumbles and (Maybe) He's Out

By Patricia L. Sharpe

For about 48 hours I tried to feel good about the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, but I wonder now.

Support Barak!

Not that I won’t vote for Obama in November. No matter what. Here’s one very strong reason why. The most recent Supreme Court rulings extend habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees, but the vote was five to four, a close call, and Bush-appointees Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Alioto dissented. Should a Bush clone be in a position to fill the next vacancy on the Supreme Court, these welcome decisions could be reversed. In fact, the differences between Republicans and Democrats are clearly drawn on a whole host of important issues. So there is no way I could back John McCain, and I was going to argue that strongly with other high-and-dry Hillary supporters.

A Wobbly Supporter

Then, last weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a friend. An early and staunch Obama supporter, she astonished me by expressing the fear that Obama himself might be a little wobbly on foreign affairs.

“But,” she said, quickly, “that doesn’t matter. He has good advisers.”

Not Just a Pretty Face

My reply had several parts. First of all, I don’t want a president elect who comes to the Oval Office as a naif when it comes to foreign affairs. We've seen where that leads. I want a president who already knows a lot about the world, its current state and how it got here. I want a president who already knows plenty about the ways in which the U.S. has acted in the world—and why. I want him to have some vision of where he’d like to take us, a vision he can articulate in reasonable detail. In short, I don’t want a president who’s dependent on advisers for the whole shebang. Why elect an empty suit? Furthermore, in order to evaluate advisers, you have to know something. In order to choose between good and bad advice, you have to know a good deal. Too bad Joe Biden wasn’t able to mount a stronger campaign.

However, if the president of the U.S. is going to be a pretty face, a cheerleader, a figurehead, then he or she better have very good advisers indeed. And so I come to my second concern. Two big stumbles have already given the McCain forces dangerous ammunition.

The initial blooper had to do with Obama’s remark that he’d speak to anyone, even the leaders of Iran. This willingness to prioritize diplomacy pleased many of his supporters. It pleased me, too, even before the primary phase was over. But McCain and company jumped on it. Naturally. The failure came when Obama was unable to explain, clearly, why he could and would stand on that simple principle. Talking to tough cookies really is defensible.

The Sins of the Fathers: Thoughts on the Fulbright Snafu in Gaza

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Here’s the gist of it: because Palestinians in Gaza chose Hamas, Gaza has been turned into a concentration camp, and even the children of those naughty voters must be punished, according to Israel and its primary financial and moral (ahem!) backers in the Bush administration. As a result, Palestinian students can’t count on exit visas to study abroad, even when they’re awarded the full scholarships they need to do so. Not even when those scholarships are sponsored by Israel’s official friends in the U.S.

So, Palestinian children are to be punished for the sins of their fathers even unto the umpteenth generation. This sort of thinking goes back to the Bible. It’s purpose, several millenia ago, was to account for the baffling cosmic injustice by which good people suffered very bad things. The explanation: God designed it that way. You’re in trouble because you had a bad daddy or mommy ad infinitum.

Well, that explanation may work, sort of, for some people, to account for the consequences of natural phenomena like tsunamis and earthquakes and tornadoes. Unavertable catastrophes kill a lot of innocent people and even some saints, no doubt. Such premature mortality doesn’t seem fair, but people often feel better if they can find a “good reason” for the horror.

Actually death by typhoon, etc., isn’t fair, because fairness has nothing to do with nature.

But the Israeli exit visa policy has nothing to do with god or nature. It’s a political decision, and it’s hubris or sacrilege for humans to think they may act like god. On the human level, meanwhile, the notion of punishing children for the sins of their fathers is not only unjust inhuman and unjust, it’s ludicrous. It assumes that a person’s future can be predicted at a very early age. It also assumes that children always or mostly turn out like their parents.

On what sage-worthy grounds might an Israeli security staffer deny an exit visa? The kid threw stones at Israeli soldiers when he/she was 12 or 14? He/she shouted anti-Israeli slogans or scribbled anti-Israeli graffiti? He/she has a father, mother, cousin, uncle who is/was a Hamas member or supporter?

In practice, no such factors reliably predict anyone's future philosophy or behavior. For example, when I entered college, I was a Christian, a Republican and an ardent Israel supporter. I am none of these now, and I have changed no more than many people do over a lifetime.

Sometimes children adopt the parental religious orientation or profession; sometimes they don’t. Some children get more liberal as a result of travel and education. Some get more conservative. Furthermore, we all know that siblings can be as different as night and day. Thus, there is no way to know how a young or inexperienced person will react when exposed to foreign countries and cultures.

To give the devil his due, it’s true that some foreign-educated engineers and doctors have become terrorists. Yet most turn out to be beneficial members of society. Is it reasonable to punish 1000 potential agents of good in order to avert the minuscule risk of one (or less) going amok? The Israeli policy of denying foreign education to Gazans is a crude and vicious business of punishing children for the supposed sins of their fathers, a policy of totally gratuitous cruelty.

It’s cruel in another way, too. It assumes that parents will do anything you want them to do if you make life hard for their children. It assumes, in this case, that Gazans, at a certain point of deprivation and humiliation, will hug their babies, fall on their knees and beg for forgiveness, after which they will humbly vote as Israelis want them to vote. By now, it should be clear that such self-negation will not happen. Not even the Bush administration is willing to let Gazans starve.

Fortunately, then, most of the trapped children will grow up, but there’s a consequence to consider. Although the principle of non-predictability applies across the board, I strongly suspect that a larger proportion of those who never experience a more benign environment will be angrier and more vindictive than those who left to study at Harvard or Michigan State or Bryn Mawr. Or Oxford. Or Heidelberg.

How could the U.S. have slavishly acquiesced in this policy of punishing youth for the sins of the grown ups? I don’t understand it, but I am deeply grateful to those who spilled the beans and hope (not very optimistically) they will not be punished for disclosing this injustice. There is nothing like public humiliation to cause policy change. The Palestinian Fulbrighters will travel.

I am no less happy to see that exit visas will also be issued to hundreds of Gazans who had been denied the opportunity to travel to other countries for education.

However, nothing can be taken for granted. Vigilance will be required, lest the prison gates be locked again, after this little brouhaha dies down. And should an administrative “bottleneck” occur again, I suggest that the proper U.S. response should not be to revoke Palestinian grants or to plead for reversal, but to immediately reassign all Israeli Fulbright grants to Muslim students elsewhere in the world.

Not all Fulbright awards go to young students, of course, but visas for older scholars are equally defensible. Surely no Israeli official in his or her right mind can believe that a Palestine without professionals and academics will be good for Israel’s future security. Unless, of course, Israel’s true goal really is the genocide, total expropriation or perpetual serfdom that some Israelis, at least, seem to envision for the Palestinians.

Ending the Revenge Cycle: A Film from Chad

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Nelson Mandela understood.

Acted upon, the all-too-natural hunger for revenge invites retaliation which, in turn, activates an endless cycle. Since the lex talionis is such a ghastly trap, truth and reconciliation councils were created to allow South Africans to wipe the political slate clean and participate, under new rules, in a post-apartheid society. It looked, for awhile, as if the revenge cycle had been stopped almost before it started. Unfortunately, Mandela’s successor Thabo Mbeke hasn’t been so adept at handling the very different challenges of his presidential tenure, with the result that immigrants from poorer African countries are now being scapegoated, even murdered, for economic difficulties they certainly did not cause. The townships, still poor, are erupting in violence again, and other South Africans are in a state of disbelief as they cope with electricity shortages. One hopes that Mbeke’s successor will not stoop to the thuggery and demagoguery by which Robert Mugabe has controlled an economically-devastated Zimbabwe, where Mugabe’s high level henchmen obviously intend to perpetuate their grip on government even after the once-respected octogenarian can no longer serve as a front man for their ambitions.

Mugabe rose to power by decimating his post-independence opposition. Not the whites. A political faction dominated by another tribe. Then, for fear of retribution, he had to keep sitting on them. One hopes that when Mugabe and those he has nurtured are, eventually, inevitably, replaced, the new regime will take a wiser course. One hopes against hope that the upcoming rerun of presidential elections in Zimbabwe will be overseen by outside electoral experts so that the Zimbabwe workers being driven out of South Africa will be able to participate, without fear, in the rehabilitation of their ruined country. For that to happen in a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe there will have to be a lot of forgiveness and political restraint.

This is a long introduction to a fine film made in Chad, but it’s an appropriate introduction because the film indicates that Nelson Mandela is far from the only African dedicated to promoting an end to ugly cycles of murder and revenge. Forgiveness is difficult, but possible.

Here’s where the story in Daratt, the Dry Season begins: the civil war in Chad is over, but young Nassara’s blind grandfather is outraged by the news that all participants in the bloodbath will be granted amnesty. He tells the young man that he must go to the capital Ndjemena, find his father’s killer and avenge the family by doing away with him. The old man gives his grandson a hand gun for the job and says that he will be waiting for a report of success under a certain tree in the desert some distance from their village. The boy sets off to do his duty. We don’t realize it at the time, but the symbolism is clear: a blind old anachronism anchors himself to a barely surviving, solitary tree in the desert.

Four Fine Films for a Well-Spent Summer: Thank You, Africa

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

We’re always bombarded, about now, with inducements to see the summer blockbusters on offer from the U.S.-based film industry. What usually keeps me out of the dark rooms called theaters over the summer months isn’t the beautiful weather. It’s the predictable banality of what’s on offer. The assumption seems to be that we turn our brains to “off” when vacation time rolls around. Surely this is counter-intuitive. If we have less pressure and more leisure, we should be ready—no, eager!—to sink into something a little more intellectually-demanding (and rewarding) than a sex comedy or a shoot ‘em up. I know I am. I doubt if I’m alone.

Fortunately for me, a wonderful institution in Santa Fe, the Center for Contemporary Arts, held its sixth annual African Effect Film Festival this past week. Gorgeous late spring weather notwithstanding, I took in four out of six offerings. Every film I saw was a winner—and the only reason I didn’t see the other two is that I had a houseguest from Pakistan. We were too busy talking (and arguing) about politics in a very different quadrant of the globe.

One thing I savored about all the African films was the pace. In America today everything militates against thinking. Most of what the media beams at us demands nothing but emotion and reaction. Bang! Bang! Bang! Quick cutting for an entire population suffering from attention deficit syndrome. Even the embedding culture demands that we react from the gut, that we trust only our feelings, that we submit to the wisdom of crowds which, hopefully, won’t turn into lynch mobs. The current foreign policy bias is consistent. The Bush administration overvalues shooting from the hip and devalues diplomacy as treasonous appeasement of enemies.

So it was wonderful to experience films that allowed me to indulge in a little reflection as they unrolled. The films I saw were from Mali, Congo, Chad and Tunisia, those I missed from Rwanda and South Africa. Each time, when I emerged into the sunlight, I felt both exhilarated and relaxed, a mood that must be close to the state encouraged by zendo masters who want their charges to be calmly ready to move in any direction. These Africans are also on to something.

Even the look of the films was pure pleasure, except for the shots of Kinshasa in On the Rumba River, by which I don’t mean to imply that the cinematography was sloppy. The film succeeded almost too well in the morally-ambiguous project of making charm out of ambient ugliness, since Kinshasa is a palpably unhealthy place for human residence or activity. Filthy old plastic bags and garbage strewn everywhere. Puddles so disgusting you want to hold your nose, even in the theater. Buildings shabby or just plain falling apart. The mighty Congo clogged with rusty, long-sunk river boats, including some that must date back to Joseph Conrad’s time. This is the grubby reality of Kinshasa for all but the elite, who attend conferences at glittering luxury hotels with spotlit Versailles-like fountains. Rumba gave us just a glimpse of one of these pleasure palaces. It was a shocking reminder of the post-colonial corruption that drains the wealth out of resource-rich countries and reduces good people to a life of bare survival and beaten down resignation.

Funny Friends in the Middle East

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Who hates us? Who loves us? Who’s an enemy? Who’s an ally? These are important questions, but the people who presume to answer them for us often seem to be more than a little disingenuous—or just plain ignorant—when they try to persuade Americans that we’d be fine if we could shut down the Shia and rely on the Sunni, among whom we have so many staunch friends.

Let’s look at a few Sunni rulers in the Middle East, beginning with the Saud corporation.

The ruling Al Saud family in Saudi (what else!) Arabia are Sunni. The Bush family have been in profitable alliance with this large parasitic family, who rule but do not represent the native born residents of their share of the Arabian peninsula. In the past there was a useful little pact: the U.S. gave the al Sauds the military wherewithal to feel secure as they pumped oil out of the sand, while the Sauds gave America the oil required to fuel and lubricate our life style. The deal worked to America’s advantage (it seemed) so long as America was the primary reliable customer for oil. The apparent excess of supply over demand kept prices low enough to sustain America’s now notorious car culture. Unfortunately, there are friends and friends, as evidenced by George W. Bush’s unsuccessful oil-begging trip to Saudi Arabia last week. It seems there are other big customers for oil these days.

Meanwhile, the non-democratic Saddam Hussain was a Sunni, but he was not a friend—except when he was at war with Iran, in which case he was such a good friend that we evidently helped him out with the chemical weapons we would later condemn him for using on the wrong enemies. Afterwards, when he decided to gobble up Kuwait, he became an enemy, of course. Bush the 41st, having won the first Iraq war, gave a humbled Saddam a chance to be a friend again, but Saddam bit the hand that would befriend him, and, to show his father what real manhood is, Bush the 43rd hung him. Soon we were to discover that the Sunni of Iraq didn’t want to be our friends, though the Shia were delighted with the results of our incursion: a Shia majority (surprise! surprise!) claimed the right to rule, but the winners in their internal power struggle weren’t the cohorts of the scheming secular Chelabi, but those allied to warring clerical factions, all of whom turned out to be more or less friendly with Iran. This causes more than a little grief for the Iraqi government’s friendship with America. Friendship, evidently, is supposed to be monogamous!

In Afghanistan, the Taliban are 100% Sunni, but they are not our friends, while the Hazara and most other members of the Eastern Alliance with whom we joined up during the anti-Soviet war on Afghan territory were Shia, which didn’t keep them from being our close friends. President Karzai, a Sunni, is obliged to pretend he is a friend, but he looks so unhappy when he complains about U.S. troops' collateral damage to Afghan civilians that I wouldn’t count too much on the relationship, should the flow of funding cease. Buying loyalty works only so long as the checks arrive.

As to the widely admired, late King Hussain of Jordan, a Sunni monarch often considered a friend of the West and even of Israel, that good king sided with Iraq during the first Iraq war, to a very large extent because the majority of the residents of Jordan are Palestinians, who are Sunni, and the only way Hussain could keep Jordan together was to favor his belligerent neighbor. Abdullah, his son and heir, comes to the U.S., from time to time, in an effort to instill a little savvy into American policy toward the Muslim world, but so far seems to have had little impact, though he also achieves his other goal, financial support for his kingdom, which in 2008 comes to about $50 per Jordanian or $300,000. That certainly buys a modicum of friendship.

To continue: Socialist Gamal Abdul Nassar of Egypt was also a Sunni, but he was not seen as a friend of America, since he found the Soviet Union more amenable to his goals, but subsequent non-democratic Sunni presidents of Egypt have been seen as friends, especially when they shut the unfriendly-to-the-U.S. Sunni Muslim Brotherhood out of legitimate politics. So, these Egyptian Sunni, are they friends or enemies of the U.S.?

Whooops! I almost forgot the Palestinians. They are largely Sunni, which should make them our friends, except when they oppose Israeli occupation—or vote, in an honest election, for Hamas, in which case they become our enemies, especially when they turn toward Shia Iran for weapons with which to oppose Israeli oppression. The Bush administration thinks the Iran link is terrible. But, at worst, isn’t this Hamas-Iran axis a little like the U.S. befriending nasty dictators during the Cold War? When you need allies, you don’t ask embarrassing questions. On the West Bank, at least, we have real friends, under the hapless leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, yet even Abbas was snubbed when Bush came to congratulate Israel on 60 years of independence, since that also means 60 years of displacement to Palestinians. Come to think of it, who in all of Palestine considers the U.S. an honest broker, let alone a friend these days?

What a confusing, mixed up business this is! Why can’t the Sunni just be clones of one another? The right kind of clones, of course.

On the other hand, maybe a certain homogenization is happening, which should not be at all comforting to the Bush administration, because the less U.S.-friendly have gained strength and influence, even in Indonesia. When it comes to aggressive missionary activity–and successful conversion, the prize-winners seem to have been the puritanical Sunni Salafists, whom the oil-wealthy Saudis have funded generously to preach their version of Islam globally. Anti-American books are distributed widely by the Saudi World Muslim League, free for the asking, courtesy of gas-guzzling American drivers. So, while the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. is welcomed as a courtesy uncle (even better than a friend) in the Bush family, his government is pushing a xenophobic, misogynistic Wahhabi form of Islam as the only authentic practice for the truly pious. Though Osama bin Laden is now persona non grata in Saudi Arabia, it’s not because he’s charged with misusing Islam to justify terrorism against kafirs. It’s because he considers the Saudi ruling family to be irreligious and thus unfit for rulership. And Al Qaeda of Iraq may or may not be controlled by the home office in Waziristan, but it’s members are definitely Sunni.

I conclude with a simple question: when columnist Thomas L. Friedman speaks of robustly supporting our Sunni friends and allies in the Middle East, who on earth can he be referring to? The king of tiny, ethnically split Jordan? A fragile government in ethnically-complex Lebanon? The nice, but powerless Abbas on the West Bank? A few Sunni emirs in the Persian Gulf whose oil-producing kingdoms contain more unprivileged foreigners (and Shi’a) than native-born Sunnis? A bunch of Iraqis in Anbar who are friends because we pay them to fight for instead of against us? Some friends! Some allies! Pretty thin reeds to tie a policy to.

Friedman ends his lament over Hezbolla’s increased power in Lebanon with a quote meant to suggest that the more Hezbolla appears to succeed the weaker it will be. To me, it seems as if the quote is more applicable to the Bush administration’s Middle Eastern policy:

Lebanon is not a place anyone can control without a consensus, without bringing everybody in,” said the Lebanese columnist Michael Young. “Lebanon has been a graveyard for people with grand projects.” In the Middle East, he added, your enemies always seem to “find a way of joining together and suddenly making things very difficult for you.”

Yup!

Half a Million!

by CKR, PHK, and PLS

This afternoon, StatCounter registered 500,000 page views for WhirledView.

We signed up with StatCounter in November 2005, about a year after we started WhirledView, so we must have more page views than that. And TypePad hasn't quite registered that half-million yet. It's a commonplace that even if you can count such things, we still don't know what they mean. We'd love to know how many regular readers we have, but that eludes us.

But you're out there, and you're reading WhirledView! For that, we thank you many times over.

Let Them Eat Golf Balls

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

I can’t believe it. The U.S. is backing plans to build a luxury golf course adjacent to or in the Green Zone. Who uses a golf course? Mostly males. Monied males. Is this what’s needed in the center of a city that has suffered so badly?

Think of New York. What’s in the center of New York? Central Park.
What’s in the center of London? Hyde Park.
What’s in the center of Rome? The Villa Borghese.
What’s in the center of Paris? Lots of parks.

What’s in the center of Calcutta? The Maidan. Yes, the maidan was laid out by the British during the colonial period, but today it’s where kiddies ride ponies and boys play football/soccer and families picnic and lovers smooch behind the shrubbery. It’s one of the good things the British did during their long tenure. This would be a fine model for what the U.S. leaves behind in Baghdad—assuming the U.S. ever leaves, which is seldom contemplated under the Bush administration, although, in the long run, it will happen. Gracefully. Or otherwise.

Parks are a mark of civilization. They bring people together in the open air. They serve as lungs for a crowded city. They remind people caught up in the stressful necessities of urbanized life that there’s something called nature, which forms the bedrock of our existence. They give people as deep sense of freedom and ease.

Parks bring people together and, something very important, they don't come with entrance fees (as in Disneyish amusement “parks”) or greens fees. People stroll. They sit. They play with children or watch their children play. They chat. They debate. They laugh. They flirt. The enjoy the play of the seasons. When they leave the park, they feel relaxed and happy.

But instead of gifting the people of Bagdad with a spacious central park for the enjoyment of all Baghdadis, what is the Bush administration pushing? A golf course, where a handful of (mostly) middle-aged, VIPish males can hit a ball around velvety lawns while making deals with the same (and sometimes a few women, if they’re really really important or don’t mind inconvenient tee times).

Yes, the American cast of thousands and the other bigwigs who work in the Green Zone will be able to play nine holes or maybe even 18 right in the center of the city and then, no doubt, have drinks (alcoholic) in a luxurious clubhouse thereafter.

There’s a possible upside to this scheme. Maybe, if there’s a golf course next to the monster embassy in the Green Zone, the U.S. State department won’t have so much trouble filling all its Baghdad slots. I guess a golf course is a good way to bribe people into putting up with life in a sealed off, privileged enclave in the middle of a war zone.

And the jehadis can practice making holes in one with their occasional rockets.

I’m not making this up. The American military promoters admit that they are thinking very much of themselves and not the long-suffering people they’ll be posted among.

The $5 billion plan has the backing of the Pentagon and apparently the interest of some with deep pockets in the world of international hotels and development, according to the lead military liaison for the project.

For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a "zone of influence" around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy, whose total cost will reach about $1 billion after all the workers and offices are relocated over the next year.

"When you have $1 billion hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbors are," said Captain Thomas Karnowski, the U.S. Navy officer who led the team that created the development plan. "You want to influence what happens in your neighborhood over time."

The U.S. has done so many inept things in Iraq. The golf course project will be one more indication that the U.S. is totally out of touch with the needs of real people.

How about putting the golf course money into building parks along the river banks? Parks for everybody. Oh? A river park wouldn’t be safe for Americans? Stupid me!

On the other hand, Iraqis too have raised their eyebrows.

Some Iraqi leaders even have drawn parallels to the U.S.-backed development plan and what Saddam Hussein did in the area. During his reign, the neighborhood was dominated by family and tribal allies, political loyalists and members of his elite Republican Guard.

Furthermore, and I can't emphasize this too much, all this smacks of the dirty O-word. That’s occupation.

That aside, the project is being whitewashed as having the blessing of the mayor of Baghdad. And how was that blessing obtained? How much did it cost under the table and how was the money channeled? I’d like the opinion of a courageous inspector general here, an inspector general of proven integrity and independence. Perhaps I am being a tad too cynical here. But the process of rebuilding Iraq has been, to a very large extent, a tale of corruption and irresponsibility. The benefits to ordinary Iraqis have not been commensurate with the sums laid out by the U.S.

What’s more, it’s hard for me to see that any mayor who favors investment in golf courses run for profit over parks provided freely to the people of the city can be cited as a man who has the best interests of his electorate at heart.

And I wonder if anyone still serving in what's left of the public diplomacy sphere at the State Department was consulted on this move? Probably not. Diplomacy has mostly been handed over to the Pentagon, which is of course the sponsor of the golf course project.

What the hell! Let them eat golf balls.